Can I ask you a question?
by Certacy
Summary: Teddy asks Remus about being a werewolf and Remus thinks it's time for him to learn the facts. Excuse the crap title...


Remus had only just gotten in when it happened. He'd just been out with Sirius to a pub (although he didn't drink alcohol as he was apparating) so he didn't expect anybody to be awake at his 2am return. Obviously, he was wrong.

His 11 year old son, Teddy Remus Lupin, was walking timidly down the stairs towards his father.

"Teddy?" asked Remus. "What are you still doing up? Your bedtime was _hours _ago,"

"I was just… wondering something…" replied Teddy, hesistantly.

"At 2am?"

"Dad," continued Teddy, ignoring his father. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Can't it wait until later when your mum won't kill me for talking to you at _2am_?"

"Does it _have _to?" Teddy pouted. Remus looked at his son's disappointed face and was curious about what he was so interested about.

"Oh, fine then, but if I doze off it's not my fault, okay?" said Remus, impatiently.

"Okay. Well," Teddy began. "I…. I was just wondering," he paused a few times, thinking of how to word his question. "What's it like… you know, um…. Being a, ah, werewolf?"

Remus was taken aback. Obviously, he knew this question was important but he thought it would be something to do with Victoire or something else boys his age would be curious about.

"Why?" Remus replied, frowning.

"I was just thinking, I mean, all I know is that your dad insulted Greyback, he turned you into a werewolf when you were five and that it's painful, but that's it, really... you aren't mad at me, are you?" Teddy suddenly added, worriedly.

"No, no, not at all, Ted, just surprised." Remus said quickly. "Well, there's not really anything else to it. My dad told Greyback what he really thought of him, that he was a sick, sadistic man and other things, and Greyback got angry, but he didn't take his anger out on my dad. He situated himself outside our home just before the full moon and I got bitten,"

"But how?" Teddy asked, curiously. "Did he come into your house? Or did you go outside?"

"No, I, bearing in mind that I was five, thought it was a dog. I thought that, if I found it, my parents would let me keep it, so I went off around my area whilst my parents were fast asleep and I tried to find him."

"And then he bit you." Teddy said, disgustedly.

"And then he bit me." Remus confirmed.

Teddy was quiet for a while.

"Dad…what did it feel like?" he asked, finally breaking the silence.

"It was painful beyond words, Teddy. He… bit me on my right arm, you've seen the scar. It was about a minute before my dad actually found me. It didn't seem like a long time, but it felt like it. I passed out because of the pain and shock and woke up in St. Mungos. All the Doctors and Nurses were still healing me, you know, a lot a five year olds would die after going through that, and I remember seeing my mum crying."

"Do you remember it well, then?"

Remus shrugged. "It's hard to forget,"

Teddy nodded. "And what does it feel like now? Transforming, I mean."

"It… it's hard to explain, Ted. All my bones grow and rearrange themselves so that's why I'm not the same the day after: I need a sort amount of time to recover. Why?" he asked again.

"Just wondering."

"Why are you 'just wondering' all of the sudden?"

Teddy hesitated. "I saw a book about werewolves at the library earlier, and it said that… you have to know, I don't agree with it in the slightest, but it said things about Greyback. It said that… that he especially likes to bite young children, to lure them away from their parents and wizards. That, once made into a werewolf, their parents, or anybody for that matter, wouldn't want them anymore; they'd just _abandon _them and let Greyback turn them, uh, bad,"

Remus was watching his son intently. "That's… basically true, but my parents loved me, Teddy. They'd never abandon me, but… some people…" he sighed. "Some people are really prejudiced against werewolves, take pureblood families for example; if one of the children got bitten I doubt that they'd actually care. But me and your mum, we'd never do that to you, you know that,"

"Yeah, but what does it mean by 'bad'? Does it mean turning them into something like Greyback or something?"

"Well, yes, partly, you know the Death Eaters? Voldemort's followers? Harry has told you all about them." Teddy nodded. "Well, it raises them to be Death Eaters, they wouldn't know any better. That's why it was harder for me to 'become' one of them during the second war, I'd grown up amongst Wizards, been brought up by a family of them, gone to school with them, even taught them so they didn't trust me at first."

"How did you gain their trust?"

"Well…" Remus considered telling him that they'd tortured him for hours on end but, remembering it was _2am _in the morning and Teddy was only 11 years old, he didn't fancy giving him nightmares. "I don't think I should tell you just yet,"

"Why?" asked Teddy, tilting his head in confusion and interest.

"Because it's another story for another day." replied Remus, simply.

"It was bad then?" Teddy swallowed. Remus underestimated him sometimes.

"Hmm?" Remus tilted his head as Teddy had moments before.

"If it wasn't bad, you'd tell me, but as you're keeping it a secret from me…"

"I'm not keeping it a secret from you, Teddy, I'd tell you but you should be sleeping."

"Dad, I'm not sleeping until I get answers," Teddy said, stubbornly. It was times like this that he was so like his mum Remus found it hilarious.

"Teddy, what did the book say?" asked Remus. He remembered how biased books were and the book that Teddy had read obviously had an impact on him otherwise he wouldn't be so curious as to how much it hurt.

"It said that…" Teddy began slowly, trying to recall what the book said, word for word. "The book said that werewolves are ruthless, they don't care how much pain and suffering they cause as long as they do what they've set their mind _to _do. Did they torture you, Dad?" he finished, his voice getting higher and higher. Remus hesitated.

"Yes," he answered, truthfully. "Yes, they did,"

"Why did you go through with it?" said Teddy as though his father was crazy. Remus realized that he was still stood in front of the door, his coat and shoes still on.

"Teddy, maybe you should sit down…" he said. Teddy did so and Remus sat next to him after putting his coat on the stairs and shoes at the bottom of it. "OK, Harry has explained about the way Voldemort changed the wizarding world – and even the muggle world, hasn't he?" Teddy nodded. "Well, there was a group – The Order of the Phoenix – Sirius was in it too, basically we tried to get as many people as possibly _not _to go to Voldemort's side.

"We all had… certain people we had to try and persuade. Your mum, as an Auror, tried to get inside information from the ministry as well as getting co-workers not to join that side. Kingsley and Arthur did it too, and a few others but you don't know them.

"Hagrid was sent to the Giants, Hagrid is a half-giant, you see, Dumbledore sent him to France (or something like that, I can't remember), Hagrid had to get the giants to come to our side rather than the death eaters because the death eaters were getting as many people and creatures as they could, we had to beat them at their own game.

"As I hope you know, I'm a werewolf, Dumbledore asked me to go underground to see what the werewolves were up to. It's horrible under there, Teddy. There's nothing to eat other than rats that you have to catch yourself, there's no hygiene either, you'd have to go weeks to get a shower if you were lucky. Werewolves are kind of sorted into packs, the leader of the pack underground was Greyback. When I first contacted them, Greyback wanted to be sure I was one of them, I'd grown up with wizards my whole life and lived like one, went to school like one, and got a job as one,"

"But you _are_ a wizard." Teddy frowned, puzzled.

"A lot of wizards would disagree with you there, Ted." Remus said, sadly. "I can do spells, charms, hexes, curses, you know, but some people, they…" Remus couldn't quite explain it. "They think that we don't have wizard blood, they think we have dirty blood."

"Well that's a bunch of crap," retorted Teddy. "You were born a wizard and you'll die a wizard." Remus smiled at his son.

"Anyway," he said, shaking his head when he remembered it had gone _2am!_ "Go to bed, your mum's going to kill me for the seventh time this week…" Teddy smiled and tip-toed (careful not to wake his mother) back to his bedroom, thinking about werewolves before falling into a deep sleep.

Remus also went up to his and Tonks' bedroom a few moments after. After taking swapping his casual clothes for his PJs, he slipped gently into bed next to Tonks and wrapped an arm around her. She stirred slightly and Remus apologized for waking her up.

"No, I was… I was already awake." Tonks lied, yawning. She also cuddled up to Remus.

"We've got a really intelligent kid, haven't we?" said Remus, thinking about Teddy.

"Who, Teddy?" asked Tonks, sleepily. She wasn't all with it, bless her.

"Mm," nodded Remus. "He's a great boy."

"Yeah." Agreed Tonks, although truthfully, she had no idea what he was on about. She was asleep again in a matter of moments and Remus couldn't help but think what an amazing family he had and couldn't believe his luck.


End file.
